6. Chapter 6
AHREN
“OK. I’m here.” Connor gruffed. “You pulled me away from a hot bath and a good book. This better be good.”
The corners of my lips twitched up, just a bit. It wasn’t often I allowed people to speak so disrespectfully to me. But it was Connor’s reward.
I had offered her anything she wanted the first time she saved my life. I wasn’t usually one for the grand gestures, but that had been a close call, and I was lucky to be alive.
Most people would have asked for money or hell, a private island, not Connor. She said, “I’m not the demure, polite type. I’ll work hard for you. Just let me speak plainly.”
It took some getting used to, but it turned out I kinda liked having someone who didn’t jump at my every command and called me out on my bullshit, but I could still call when I found my rival near death in the woods.
She came to a stop a few paces from me, folding her arms over her chest.
“One of yours?” she asked, inclining her head toward Tierney’s too still body.
I took a final breath before answering with a shake of my head. “No. I want you to see if you can work a miracle on this one like you did for me.”
“Friend of yours?” came her blunt reply.
A wry chuckle escaped me. “Not even close.”
“I don’t even like her.” I said a beat later as Connor kneeled to examine her.
Her head snapped up to mine. “But you want me to save her?”
I nodded, “Yeah. I do.”
“Well, I can’t do it here.” She answered, rising to her feet.
“I know,” I replied quietly, kneeling and lifting her into my arms, shocked at how light she was.
“Where did you park?” I asked, turning to face her.
She exhaled sharply, but her features softened as she took in the limp figure in my arms.
“This way.” She said, jerking her head to the side and turning to walk away.
It was a ten-minute walk to where she left her car and a little more than fifteen more before we reached my house.
She lay draped across my arms. Blood and debris kept me from seeing the true extent of her injuries—but I could feel cold seeping into my skin from her body where warmth should have been.
She whimpered softly, the sound barely louder than a sigh, but it was enough to shatter the heavy silence that hung over us. My fingers curled around her instinctively, trying to hold her together until Connor could fix her.
Connor dropped her bag on my dining table, landing with a heavy thud. A sharp contrast to the gentle manner in which I laid Tierney on the dining table.
She sprang into action, cutting away her clothes, leaving her in only her undergarments.
“Grab my keys,” she said, jutting her chin toward them. “There is a bundle of towels in the trunk. Bring them to me.” She commanded as she lined her instruments up on the table.
I did as she said, reentering the dining room to find Connor straddling Tierney, pinning her arms to the table as she thrashed beneath her.
I dropped the towels on the table and grabbed her arms. Connor was no weakling, but I knew I had a better chance of subduing the frantic woman.
Her eyes went wide, wild with fear, her lips parted, quivering with terror; I could only imagine the confusion and horror she must be feeling to find me holding her down when she was so helpless.
Connor raised a syringe, presumably of some anesthetic, and Tierney went limp, resigning herself to her fate for the second time tonight.
“No.” she whispered weakly.
“It’ll be over soon.” I murmured in what I hoped was a soothing voice, but empathy wasn’t really my thing.
Her eyes got heavier the moment Connor pushed the medicine into her IV, and it was only moments before she succumbed completely.
“Thanks,” she said, dropping the syringe on the table and heaving a heavy sigh. “I just placed the IV when her eyes flew open, and she started struggling. That girl is a fighter.”
A smile slowly made its way across my lips .
“Yeah, that she is.”
“When you’re finished daydreaming, wipe that dopey smile off your face and come give me a hand, will ya?”
Connor had finally gotten Tierney stabilized.
Massive internal bleeding and three broken ribs, she had said.
It was intense. I didn’t get nervous often, but watching Connor’s practiced hands deftly work to save her life, I found myself running my hands through my own hair, pulling at their ends, a lot more often than normal.
She was exhausted. I knew that. She deserved another bonus, that was for sure. Still, I had asked her to stay and watch over Tierney while I took care of a few loose ends.
It was a brisk twenty-minute walk once I arrived at the grove, before I came upon the scene of the—well, ambush from the looks of it.
Three men, each my size or larger. My face heated, my fingers involuntarily curling into tight fists at the thought as my anger flared.
Fuck ! I swore internally, the memory of her frail body in my arms still fresh in my mind.
Someone had sent three hitters to take her out. My mind just wouldn’t let go of the idea of her facing three attackers. She had been at a serious disadvantage, yet somehow, she had taken all three out and still had the grit to crawl away for her life .
My thoughts drifted back to the morning I received that first white rose just moments before I got the “0” notification. I had recognized the taunt for what it was, a gifted hitter choosing her rival.
She had chosen me as the metric to measure herself by—the standard against which she would judge her skill level. In order to be the best, you gotta beat the best.
As my thoughts came into sharper focus, I realized that was exactly why I was furious; she was mine. My rival. Mine to defeat, mine to kill and some asshole had taken that away from me or tried to, at least.
Two Karambit knives were embedded deep in these assholes. I was certain they belonged to her, so I retrieved them.
Only one of the men had a phone on him. He wouldn’t be needing it anymore, so I relieved him of it.
One more quick sweep of the area and I found two more karambits in the dirt and pocketed them. I chuckled to myself, wondering if she was on her way to a job or if she always walked around strapped, probably the latter.
The three men were covered in blood, as were the pine needles that covered the ground in the immediate vicinity. She had done a fairly efficient job of eviscerating them.
“Good girl.” I murmured my praise to the silent grove.
While nearly all this blood belonged to these men, she did have several small lacerations, so it was conceivable some of this blood belonged to her. It had felt almost like professional courtesy to remove any evidence of her from the scene.
I remembered one of the men had a small box of matches in his pocket. Was that the plan? Kill Tierney and set the grove ablaze to hide the evidence.
Not a bad plan, actually, I thought to myself as I kneeled beside him and fished the matches from his pockets .
The tang of sulfur hit my nose as I struck the first match, dropping it in the center of the triangle of bodies, then several more in an arc around them a little farther out. Match after match fell alongside the pathway on my way back to my car.
By the time I reached the small parking area, the dry as a bone needles had caught nearly the entire grove, the heat radiating from the blaze was already enough to make me uncomfortable and it was still a decent distance from me.
One final look as I pulled out onto the darkened two-lane highway. The flames were leaping above the treetops and I could no longer make out individual trees, just a wall of fire.
“Now no one will ever know she was there.” I murmured.